Stupidae

So, what’s worse than that? Two things, however related. The first is mimes.

In this case, I’m not talking about those paranoid schizophrenics in the park, dressed like Snoopy and pretending to climb things. Those twerps are quiet. This is a benefit.

I’m talking more about shadowactors. The people you see onstage at the cinema, where they haven’t got a stage. So in fact you see them trudging through the cinemuck between the front row and the screen, pantomiming the actions of the characters in the film. To be fair, some of them are actually pretty good at it, though I can’t promise they’d be able to do it when the film isn’t playing behind them. Even so, that’s actually rare; usually, it’s unremarkable fatties limping about, pretending to interact with props they rarely have. And this makes them actors.

Traditionally, this is a symptom of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, though it’s branched out into Clue and Plan Nine from Outer Space and Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and—because I couldn’t make this up—the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And this isn’t some spontaneous thing, like that short film Lucas liked a few years ago, set in 1997, when the film broke during the SpEd for Star Wars and the audience, having memorised the film, all got up and just acted the thing through for themselves; these people actually have casts, and meetings, and, like, grips.